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Tag Archives: van halen

I really didn’t want to call my show that, so I didn’t. It was just a solid show. It took a little while but the shows are finally coming around. I toy with themes every once in a while but until I actually do my homework, these will remain “Freeform” for the time being. I’ve toyed with going back to a strictly metal show but there is so much music out there for me to keep it on one theme. This is also why I reserve the right to play a metal format when I feel like it. Upon closer inspection of the playlist you may have noticed my 6 degrees of separation. I kicked off a round of music with Devin Townsend, who sang for Steve Vai, who in turn worked with G3 with Eric Johnson and Joe Satriani. Satriani played with Chickenfoot which had Sammy Hagar who of course fronted Van Halen. I should have played something from the Sammy Years but I did not think of this ahead of time. It was a collection of cds I just happen to have with me. I wanted to make time for Yngwie but just ran out of time. Maybe next time I will focus on Metal guitar gods!

There was a time I was a really huge fan of Van Halen but over the year, much like the man himself, Van Halen has degraded to an old tired act. I can’t believe they’re ready to release another steaming turd of an album. I read Sammy Hagar’s self serving book titled “Red” about his life and times and his stint with Van Halen. Love him or hate him, I’m convinced that had it not been for Sammy, the band would have ended with the album 1984. Why? When Sammy left the band, Gary Cherone took over the vocals. What a total disaster, Van Halen III was an unlistenable album but not because of Gary. I like Cherone but he was the wrong fit for that band. No the real problem was that Eddie Van Halen hasn’t written a new song in years. When they released the cow pie titled “Tattoo” with an aging, atonal David Lee Roth people were excited. My former cohost, Joe Roberts made a comment that the album sounded an awful lot like the first album. The sad fact, he was right. According to Mike Anthony, in a Rolling Stone article, was asked about Tattoo. Anthony claimed a lot of those songs were written for the second Van Halen album. I write all of this because Van Halen is about to release a live album with David Lee and it will be live at the Tokyo bowladrome. Ok maybe not the bowladrome but it might as well be, because they won’t be able to fill a bowling alley after fans get a chance to listen to David Lee’s cracking vocals on this album. I really hate to see an animal suffer but if Van Halen were a horse, I would have to shoot it. There is nothing that could make me want to like this band and there are times when you should just simply let something go. Will I play their music? Yeah I’m sure I will but I will not play anything beyond the Sammy Hagar era.

Yeah I could have also gone with Flo from progressive, maybe later. Anyway I think yesterday was our best show yet. Music is very much like art, you need to have a feel for it and the music. You need to be able to make each song fit and sometimes that is hard to do. The first couple of shows it took a little bit to get up and running. I had to re-introduce myself to the mixing board. Now I have to figure out the cd players to make them do what I need them to do. These are Denon players and they are made to countdown the songs, someone had messed around with the settings so now they count up and that’s no good because you don’t know exactly when the song finishes. Granted I know most of the songs I play backwards and forwards but there are some songs I don’t. In the last half of our show, I did a John James Sykes run, he played for the following three bands – Tygers of Pan Tang, Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake. Interestingly enough those albums he played on were the biggest commercial success each band had ever known. The next run went like this – Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Chickenfoot, Joe Satriani. I messed up, it should have been David Lee Roth, Van Halen, Chickenfoot then Joe Satriani. The tie is obvious, if not, here it is. David Lee Roth was obviously the vocalist in Van Halen, Sammy Hagar was the vocalist for both Van Halen and Chickenfoot. Joe Satriani was the guitarist in Chickenfoot. If I wanted to go just one more I could have played Janes addiction afterwards, Chad Smith the connection here, etc. I will have a show where I can connect all of the bands for two hours straight!

The only time I get to watch TV is when I am cooking dinner. I have 28 documentaries that I will be watching in the next 28 days. In that time you will see a review of them all. I watch them so you don’t have to, at least the bad ones anyway. I won’t spend too much time with the bad ones because people put a lot of effort into these films and its wrong to piss all over them if I didn’t care for them. I will only offer a reason why you would watch the film. I have no interest in arbitrary ratings. I will simply offer a reason to watch or to pass. I will be watching these via Hulu.

First up Van Halen the early years. I’m 50 years old, I grew up with Van Halen, I know their story inside and out. If you know nothing about this band, this is a good intro to the early years. This is a low budget film, meaning they could not get the really big names to appear on the film but were able to get the audio from them which is better than nothing. Included was an audio segment of Gene Simmons discussing how he came to sign the band. The film covers everything up to the album 5150. There is no mention of the turmoil surrounding the firing of David Lee Roth and no mention of bringing on Sammy Hagar. If you read guitar magazines as I have done through out my teen years into my late 20’s you are more than familiar with what went on. I was hoping that I would at least get some live early footage but no luck there. All in all, I would pass if you know about Van Halen. If you are listening to them for the first time, then yes, check it out.